In a recent conversation on X, Google Search Liaison stated that blocking specific content from showing up on Google Discovery is impossible.
The confirmation illuminates Google’s crawling limitations and the gray area between content that’s great for organic SEO but forbidden in Google’s News and Discovery guidelines.
Good for organic but bad for Discovery
Matt G. Southern, a senior news writer at Search Engine Journal, reported on a conversation in which Google’s Search Liaison confirmed that you can stop content from being indexed on Google News but not on Discovery.
SEO professional Lily Ray raised her concerns on X, saying it would be helpful to prevent clients’ content that might break Google’s News and Discovery guidelines but performs well in organic search from appearing on Discovery.
Lily also asked an insightful question:
- “Outside of your guidelines for SafeSearch—has Google considered a mechanism to prevent individual pages from being considered for News/Discover?”
She mentioned she had asked about this before!
Lily Ray on X:
Can’t stop Google from crawling content for Discovery
Google’s Search Liaison recommended that Lily review the existing methods for restricting Google’s access to site content.
The problem with the recommendation was that Google’s Publisher Central Help page only mentions content relevant to Google News, not Discovery!
The Search Liaison admitted he needed clarification about blocking content from Discovery and passed Lily Ray’s concern on to Google Search Advocate John Muller.
Saying:
- “John and I pinged, and we’re pretty sure there’s not an option to just block content from Discover. That would be pretty useful, so we’ll pass it on.
Here’s the full reply on X:
Looking forward
It appears that this time, Google’s Search Liaison (and Mueller) noted Lily Ray’s observation about Google’s inability to restrict certain content from appearing on Google News.
The Search Liaison’s reply, “And we’re pretty sure there’s not an option to just block content from Discovery,” suggests that Google was unaware of publishers’ lack of control over what content Google crawls, or, up until now, it wasn`t an issue for Google! The last response of “we’ll pass it on” might mean Google will give publishers more control in the future; when, however, is anyone’s guess.
